Web Accessibility: What You Say vs. What I Hear

By Mikey Ilagan on December 7, 2017

My background is in web design and development. These days, I’m an Accessibility Specialist advocating on behalf of the user. I use assistive technology to audit, review, and examine software the way a person with a disability might use it. I then work with product teams to identify and resolve these issues.

And I’ve noticed a recurring theme.

Issues identified through assistive technology such as screen readers are often treated as bugs—backlogged and forgotten in lieu of new feature development.

Let me be clear: I think looking at accessibility this way is all wrong.

Accessibility issues are missed requirements

Looking back, I regret much of my attitude and inexperience in my early days as a developer. Now I try to bring a new perspective to help people avoid my past mistakes. When it comes to implementing changes, I’m often met with resistance—from designers, engineers, product managers, and more.

But let’s look at some of those objections in a different way…

What people say: “I didn’t know this had to be accessible.”

What I hear: “I didn’t know this had to work.”

When we don’t consider accessibility, some people are simply blocked out from content that we put together and experiences that we’re building. What’s the point of designing it if we aren’t designing for as many people as we can? Designing for accessibility may be the only way some people can experience what you’ve built.

What people say: “How do we get this to pass ADA?”

What I hear: “We’ll build the very best product we can for most people. But when it comes to the people who need us the most, let’s do the minimum.”

Fair question, it’s important to know the legal implications of what we’re building whether it’s a brick and mortar, physical experience or software, but as accessibility consultant Austin Seraphin says, accessibility is not usability.

Meeting legal compliance is doing the bare minimum to avoid lawsuits. Ethically, we should strive to do more. Having done design and worked with some very talented people, I’ve seen that so much thought and consideration goes into crafting an experience. But sometimes when it comes to accessibility, it’s about checking a box. If you don’t normally do the bare minimum, don’t give your customers with disabilities the bare minimum.

What people say: “I know this is an issue, but we don’t have capacity to work on it now. We’ll create a user story and put it in the backlog for prioritization.”

What I hear: “I know my product is useless to some people, but we have things we deem more important to do for the foreseeable future.”

The original statement is problematic. To me, it’s the software development version of, “we should really hang out sometime!” with no further action taken. Make accessibility a priority.

What people say: “Is this really an issue?”

What I hear: “This problem doesn’t affect the majority. Should I be concerned with the minority?”

Humans are skeptical by nature, but disbelieving something does not make it non-existent. If you can’t acknowledge or understand there is a problem, it doesn’t make that problem go away.

What people say: “This feature is going away soon. Do we have to fix it?”

What I hear: “If this were any other high priority issue blocking most other users, we’d fix it.”

Modern digital experiences are constantly changing and ever-evolving. Even when working on one product, we’re constantly improving it. New features are added; old ones are taken away. It’s not an excuse to keep delaying things that might block people from accessing what we’re building.

This is a tough one to make a case for. I understand it does not make sense to devote resources to a previous platform, but we have to be certain its replacement does a better job. Until you’ve cleared a path, people must live with the obstruction you’ve left in their way or move on to something better-designed to suit their needs.

Avoid creating barriers for people

While the following list isn’t comprehensive, it could be a starting point for thinking about accessibility in your work and organization. Consider how you could unintentionally make it difficult for people to access your content and begin by shifting your perspective.

Think about accessibility from the very beginning. Communicate it across business, design, development, and testing.

Make accessibility a priority, a business case, and a part of your organization’s definition of “done.”

Include people with disabilities in your user personas and conduct research and studies with real people.

Make sure everyone gets accessibility training. Learn how to use assistive technology.

Think about multiple methods to convey information and interact with user interface.

Apply proper keyboard support and think about tab order. This will ensure a baseline level of accessibility for various assistive technology.

Design and develop according to the latest standards.

Create internal accessibility standards and requirements.

Let’s change the dialogue around accessibility. People want to hear what you’re saying.

Replies

John Young | December 7, 2017 at 2:20 pm

This is really thoughtful and important, Mikey, thank you for posting it. Thinking back on my career in interactive, I’ve said all of these things at one time or another. This is an important reminder and perspective. Also, in working alongside the folks at Think, I’ve learned that the process of including accessibility from the first day _always_ results in a better product for everyone — because it’s that kind of careful attention to detail that always results in improving everything else as well.

Michael Johnson | December 7, 2017 at 5:39 pm

Seems obvious. Considering accessibility from beginning to end will create better products and product experience for all users.

Good insights, glad I read it.

Akhilesh Malani | December 8, 2017 at 1:33 am

Nice written but is it practical? I am an end user who is depended on assistive technology “Screen reader” and my experience says that this looks nice in reading but when it comes to implementation whole story become the same what it was.
I am glad that accessibility is considered as priority but not exactly.
I hope my feed back do not hert or disappoint any individual but this is what is the fact.

I am an end user and I agree with everything you have said. I use a screen reader and there are access fixes I have been wanting and waiting for for years. You are right, we need to use apps for banking and shopping more than most groups of people and our user experience is blocked. Yes, it may all be better in 50 years, but how do I do my normal purchasing and bill paying in the meanwhile?

Thanks for this great post. I have been a screen reader user since the mid-90’s, and I’ve certainly had my share of frustrating experiences with software and websites. I can’t agree more that accessibility needs to be baked into the development process, rather than treated as an after-thought. This applies to more than just screen reader users though. I too have heard the argument that those of us who have disabilities are a minority. You know what? Anybody could develop a disability later in life, whether temporary or permanent. Therefore, website and software devs need to consider this.

Hi, couldn’t agree with ya more! I myself a visually Impaired person and also have a basic knowledge of html and css, and have done couple of the projects of accessibility and I know how important this word “accessibility” for us, , keep up the good work

Diane | December 15, 2017 at 2:16 pm

Is it possible you could send this to McDonald’s? Earlier this week, I learned how to use there mobile app for iPhone and was extremely impressed with its accessibility. Then yesterday, when I really used the app to place an order, I discovered they had updated the app and made an important part of it inaccessible. I sent a review asking them to change the app back to what it was before the update. If they thought about access beforehand or had someone test the app after the update, we all would be better off.

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